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Review: Endangered Reign - Unborn Legacies
Endangered Reign
www.endangeredreign.com
Unborn Legacies

Label: Independent
Year released: 2005
Duration: 45:59
Tracks: 9
Genre: Heavy/Progressive

Rating:
3/5


Review online: September 22, 2005
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
Readers' Rating
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Rated 1.67/5 (33.33%) (3 Votes)
Review

Hmmm. Today I review a pair of albums by talented bands that are never going to get anywhere if they don't get better singers. The other one is A Lower Deep, whom I shall get to shortly, but here is the second self-released album from Endangered Reign, named "Unborn Legacies."

Endangered Reign play a proggy type of metal that veers pretty close to Nevermore territory. The guitar tone is nice and heavy, and the riffs are in places really good. There are no keys, thank the Gods, and the proggishness is in the dense, complex arrangements rather than in usual prog type wankery. Check out the opening riff on "Desert Island" for example – killer riff! But then we have a cascade of the problems that drag this disc down, ready?

First there are the vocals, which frankly suck. I understand that getting someone who can really sing is a challenge for young bands, but Endangered Reign have been around for five years, and I think that as good as their music can be, they would want the best possible singer they could find, and almost anyone would be better. If Guitarist/Singer Marc Ridenour is one of those guitar players who is convinced he can sing, then this band is fucked, because you can't argue with guys like that. But if this band cares at all about getting better, they need to bend all their efforts into finding a real singer.

Well, not all their efforts, they also need to improve their songwriting big time. Hey, I never said metal was easy. Endangered Reign are good players, and they write mature, well-arranged tunes with solid riffs and leads. But their songwriting suffers from a terminal case of the Dulls. Pretty much every song on here is at the same deathly midpace, with no real spark or flow to them at all. These songs don't smoke, or pound, or kick, they plod. They trudge. Here and there the guitar work will lift things from dullsville for a few bars. But then they will lapse back into the same damned time signature they use for every song, and the vocal lines will repeat and repeat, and they kill the momentum.

Endangered Reign have a lot of potential, but they have to get a decent vocalist, and inject some life into their arrangements if they are going to ever become a good band.

More about Endangered Reign...
Review: Fractured Reality (reviewed by Sargon the Terrible)
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